


homecoming.

by kissteethstainred



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Carl Centric, Carl Gallagher is my love, Carl POV, F/M, M/M, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 05:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3238817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissteethstainred/pseuds/kissteethstainred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything seemed to get better only to get worse. Shoot a bird for Thanksgiving and it’s monitored. Shave Frank’s hair only for him to get worse. Care for Frank only for his family to shit on him. Whatever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	homecoming.

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh, this fic is birthed from my anger and disappointment towards Carl's scenes and episodes, and also because I love my son so much. This fic isn't super happy, mostly because I was having a lot of Carl emotions and anger and . . . this happened. I'm not quite sure if I got his voice right, but I hope it works well. 
> 
> For my Carl Gallagher defense squad, and mickeysupset, who complained about the lack of Carl fic in this fandom.
> 
> come talk to me: carlgallahgrs.tumblr.com
> 
> Any mistakes are my own.

Carl didn’t really expect Frank on the other side of the door, but then again, Carl had never known what Frank would do. He watched as the cops carried him inside, wrinkling his nose at the smell. Carl had never seen something so pathetic in his life.

Fiona wrinkled her nose, too, but it was full of disgust, and her face made everything more clear of her feelings on Frank. Carl didn’t understand—he had never seen Frank this dirty, this rotten, this much in need of help. Before, Frank asked for help but didn’t need it, never deserved it. Frank now was nothing more than a sad heap of flesh, breath barely trickling out and finding its way back in.

Debbie rolled her eyes when she saw Frank, told Carl there was no way she was helping him, why would she do that?

Carl didn’t understand how people in this house didn’t have fucking compassion.

\--

It wasn’t hard to acquire the materials Frank wanted. Needed wine? Sheila definitely had some fancy wine Carl could steal. Needed beer? It wasn’t like they didn’t have any in the house.

He felt this strange sense of pride as he got Frank’s supplies. It reminded him of going out with his grandma and tricking people into getting all that Sudafed. Carl didn’t like the way her skin wrinkled, nor the way she got this mean rasp in her voice when she was bitchy, but she smiled at him when he did something right and called him, “My boy,” with pride in her voice. She devoted hours with him, and him only, in their tiny conspiracy in the basement. He’d liked that.

Frank wasn’t exactly proud of Carl, but there was a gratefulness in his Frank’s eyes, the way he sighed as the alcohol entered his system. Carl wasn’t proud of Frank either—he knew Frank had brought this on himself. But he saw the specks on red on Frank’s chest, looking like actual cancer, not invisible like his grandmas, not like his had supposedly been. It looked real, and more than that, scary. Demanding. Unable to escape from it.

The red that Frank coughed up was scarier than that. Carl cleaned it up with a wet rag, trying to ignore the fact that Ian would be so pissed if he found out Frank had vomited blood in his bed.

“Thank you, son,” Frank rasped from the bed. Carl looked up at Frank, slightly surprised, but just said, “Sure,” like Carl would’ve done it on any other day. He hoped Frank never asked him why he’d done it, because Carl felt confused by it himself.

\--

That night, when Carl got up to piss, he stopped and stared at Frank on the bed. The streetlight shone through the blinds and illuminated his hair.

 _His hair_.

Carl walked over to the bed and grimaced at the rattling sound in Frank’s chest. His shirt was pulled down a bit, revealing Frank’s speckled chest. Carl touched Frank’s hair hesitantly, groaning softly at the grease. But it had grown back, even after Carl had shaved it, and it seemed healthy. Unlike Frank. It had a reverse effect. The hair was gone, but Frank got worse.

Carl wasn’t dumb. He knew that Frank was doing this to himself, that he was technically _still_ doing this to himself by drinking himself dumb.

Carl never wanted to taste another beer ever again.

\--

Some kid in class was talking about how he and his dad went hunting when they went to visit their grandparents, showing pictures of him holding a giant-ass fish and him and his family surrounding a buck they’d shot down. It made Carl’s palms itch.

Carl wanted to shoot something. He always had—he’d never really gotten the chance except for that one time with the bald eagle. But that had been a bad day, Thanksgiving. And the bird had been monitored or some shit. Nothing Carl ever did seemed to go well. Shoot a bird for Thanksgiving and it’s monitored. Shave Frank’s hair only for him to get worse. Care for Frank only for his family to shit on him. Whatever.

The kid was talking about the ranger on the reservation and how he’d asked if this kid—what was his name, Tom? Tim? Carl didn’t even fucking know—had wanted to use a gun or a crossbow. The kid had chosen the gun, apparently, because bullets were easier, but Carl disagreed. Using a crossbow when you’re hunting? Is this kid fucking dumb? Choose the fucking crossbow!

Carl thought about Ian, suddenly. Ian would’ve chosen the gun, Carl was sure, only because Ian had known how to shoot a gun. Carl had always thought that when Carl was finally old enough for Fiona to trust him, she’d allow him to use a real gun. Not some bb gun, not some paintball gun, not one with blanks. A real one. And he’d wanted to practice with Ian because Ian knew how to do it professionally. Maybe Fiona would be proud like she was with Ian. But Ian was gone, and Fiona seemed lost in this higher class world they’d never known. And here Carl was, sitting in class watching this kid explain what he’d done for his cool ass project. Carl didn’t even have his project with him. The most he’d ever done for this class, it seemed, was masturbated in it.

Carl shifted his fingers into a finger gun, pretended to look along the barrel. “Bang,” he whispered.

\--

Carl couldn’t sleep.

He got up slowly, careful not to hit his head on the ceiling. It was something he’d done a lot because he wasn’t used to being in Lip’s bed—in his new one. Carl sat up on one elbow and looked at his room. Liam was asleep in his bed—in Carl’s old bed—with his body curled towards the wall. It seemed strange to think of the Gallagher kids rotating in their beds. Soon Liam would be here, and Carl would be in Ian’s bed, and Ian would—

Everything was fucked. Carl remembered when he would listen to Lip and Ian talk about girls Lip had fucked or grades they’d gotten on a certain math test or _do you think we’re gonna make the electricity bill this time?_ They way they would say _Of course Fiona’s gonna make the money, Carl_ , very confidently, and he believed them because they were his brothers. Now he knew they had been lying. He remembered the way Lip would move, used to the low ceiling above him, the way his hands would flop over the sides of the bed. He remembered the way Ian would always say goodnight to them, the way Lip would reply sarcastically, “Goodnight, sweetheart,” and how Ian would flip them off. It seemed so long ago. It seemed liked a dream.

Now Ian was gone without a word, and Lip had jumped on a train to college and came down every once in a while, but even then, it wasn’t the same. Lip was always stressed when he came, not looking so relaxed like he’d always used to. He snapped at Carl and Debbie more, but Carl knew that it was because they were older and Lip thought they could take it. And Lip was maybe more stressed than they knew, because Carl was having trouble in middle school and Lip was going through college.

But Lip also had that same change that Fiona had. He sometimes sat at the table, drinking a beer and eyeing the kitchen and dining room, and Carl felt like they were being judged by him. Lip met some swanky people at college, it seemed. Whatever. Fuck that.

Ian was gone, but Carl couldn’t say how he was. He hardly called, anyhow.

Debbie hardly talked to Carl, but then she hardly talked to Fiona, either. She seemed perpetually mad at them for something, or exasperated, and Carl felt angry at that, so he shunned her right back. It was sort of vicious, but then they’d sit down on the couch after school and watch marathons of _Bob’s Burgers_ on TV and it felt like before, almost. Like when Lip, Ian, and Fiona would shove them out of their “adult” things and they’d be left to their own devices.

Fiona was gone most of the time, but she made an effort. Carl saw that, but the treatment of Frank and the way she just left them by themselves at night made him mad. He didn’t know why—maybe it was his teenage hormones or some shit—but he was upset with her. He didn’t think she noticed it, anyways.

Carl moved his legs over the side of the bed and slid off. He walked over to Ian’s bed and stared at the covers. It was wrinkled. Ian was critical on that shit—he wanted to be in the army, of course he had to have his bed army-style—so Carl pulled the corners so that the covers were completely smooth. Carl ran a hand over the comforter, just to check, and then stood back, satisfied. Thinking of Ian and the army reminded Carl of something else. On the desk, under some papers, was the knife Ian gave him. Carl went over to the desk and found it. He held it by the handle but ran his finger over the sheath, right where the sharp of the blade would be. He hadn’t needed it for ages, but Ian hadn’t come back, and Carl couldn’t give it to him. Carl sat down at the desk and unsheathed the knife. It had some small scratches on it, and it suddenly didn’t seem so shiny anymore. Carl would clean it in the morning.

Liam made a noise, and then Carl’s name. Carl turned around, and Liam was looking at Carl, so he went to Liam’s bedside. Carl thought it was a real fucking tragedy. Liam would never get what Carl had, with older brothers talking about their problems and their life and giving you advice. Fuck, Liam barely even got older brothers. Carl was the only steady one left. Liam would never get the experience of being in one Gallagher family unit.

 _What a goddamn tragedy_ , Carl thought, as Liam curled his hand against Carl’s.

\--

Carl remembered walking by an old house, a couple blocks from his, on his way home from school. It was on the end of the street, so they took a wrecking ball to it. Carl had stood there for a couple of minutes, staring at the house as the demolition took place. The ball just slammed into the brick time and time again, and Carl could see the way the house shuttered, but it still stayed together for a moment. Sometimes, random bricks would fall from the wall. The broken mortar and plaster made smoke rise in the air, blowing away from where Carl was standing. Sometimes the wrecking ball would hit it and everything would come tumbling down.

That was how everything looked as Liam was taken into the emergency room and Fiona was arrested. Fiona was being hit, again and again, but she was trying to stand tall. Smoke followed her, from his and Debbie’s grief to Lip’s anger. Bricks were falling around them everywhere. Everything was tumbling down.

Carl realized it would have to be them now, holding their shit together. They were the new houses being built on the foundations of the older ones.

Carl wondered if any of his bricks were already falling out.

\--

Some bitch-ass kids in his class were making fun of Liam and it was making Carl see red. He gripped the plastic of the bus seats and tried to focus on anything but their words. They weren’t entirely hurtful, really, nor clever, but Carl saw Liam in the hospital bed with straps tied around his wrist and felt fear seize him.

And if those fuckers were making him scared, well, no wonder Carl beat on them. He should’ve known that they were all words and nothing to back it, anyways.

\--

Carl was happy that Frank was there but couldn’t give a shit about Sammi. _She_ definitely wasn’t here for Carl. She was fucked up, Carl thought, only because she didn’t act like a Gallagher. Not like Carl’s family. They were a fuck-Frank-stick-together set, and Sammi couldn’t mold into that. Not that they let her, but mostly that was because she ignored the first part by favoring Frank.

Carl should’ve known, though, the way he should always know with Frank. He’d been slightly blinded by his happiness at Frank being there, and when Frank went off on a rant about the other students succeeding, something sank in Carl. He remembered the way Fiona said, “And Carl made something blow up!” and how the only project he’d ever aced had been the project Lip had helped him on, the one on electrification. So listening to Frank say Cark would be picking up garbage and everyone else would cure cancer made him really hurt. He blurted out, before he really thought about it, “What if I wanna cure cancer?”

Frank told him some shit about getting gonorrhea, but claimed he said it out love. Carl suddenly wondered if Frank had ever truly loved Carl. Carl wondered if Frank really knew what love was.  

\--

Principal Ramirez pulled him over after Frank and Sammi just left him there, into her office. Carl thought he would be done by now, but apparently doing what she wanted wasn’t enough.

“Well, Carl, that was certainly enlightening,” Ramirez said. “I don’t think it’s a wonder about you anymore, if that’s your father.”

Something about that struck him wrong. “I wasn’t raised by him,” Carl protested. Fuck Frank, he was never there. “I mean, he’s my dad, but I wasn’t raised by Frank.”

Principal Ramirez raised an eyebrow. “Then who raised you?”

“My sister, Fiona.”

“If your sister, Fiona, raises you, then why wasn’t she here?”

“She just got out of jail, and she’s on house arrest or something. She’s got an ankle monitor and everything,” Carl told her.

Ramirez pursed her lips. “Your sister was in _prison_?” She shook her head, looking displeased, and laced her fingers on top of the table.

Carl got angry at that. Who the fuck was Ms. Ramirez to judge Fiona like that? “You don’t know shit,” Carl said forcefully.

Ramirez was shocked. “Carl, _lan_ guage—”

“You don’t know Fiona. Frank wasn’t _there_. My mother was there less than Frank, _never_ there. Fiona raised all of us by herself and she fought for us and she loves us. She actually gives a shit about us, and being in prison wasn’t her fault.” Carl felt something heavy in the pit of his stomach. Ms. Ramirez was giving him pitying looks now, which wasn’t what Carl wanted. Why could he never get adults to listen to him?

“Mr. Gallagher,” she said, and then sighed. “Carl. Have you ever heard the phrase that kids who are bullies”—here she gave him a pointed look—“often have a difficult home life? And so they take their frustration out on kids at school?”

“Of course I’ve heard it before,” Carl said. But it was the first time he was ever considering that maybe, with him, it was true.

\--

Carl had never been smart like Lip, but Bonnie struck him dumb. Always. First when she turned to him, talking about why she was in there, and then later when she drugged the detention teacher. She had soft-looking blonde hair, and kind eyes, and Carl liked the way she smiled.

He was just so dumbstruck around her. When she asked him if he’d wanted to steal from a store, he’d said yes only because he didn’t really think she’d do it. But then they were in the store and the gun was actually fucking real and Carl felt an adrenaline run through his veins like he’d never known. “You should’ve seen your _face_ ,” she gasped, and the cold made her cheeks pink.

He couldn’t have expected her to kiss him. He was shocked, at first, but then kissed her back slightly, unsure of what the fuck he was even doing. Is this how you kissed someone? Was it supposed to be this gentle, at first? Bonnie pulled away, laughing, before he could even decide.

It just kept happening. She stole a car right in front of his eyes and they rode down the street at high speeds, laughing. She then completely flipped his fucking world and took him to her house—her van—and she looked so, so happy that he didn’t judge her.

Point was, Carl fell hard and fast.

\--

Ian back in the house wasn’t as strange for Carl. It just seemed like a large part of the house was back together, the machine running more efficiently. The only thing different was that Ian was off. He said these things that seemed weird, even for Ian, even to Carl.

What was even fucking stranger was Mickey Milkovich staying over. _He_ was strange: brash and loud, more expressive than Carl would’ve thought, but followed Ian around everywhere. Carl eyed them when they were in a room together, the way they faced each other and looked each other head-on, never shy, and always with something heavy between them, heavier than either of them.

Lip was gone, and Fiona was still gone, but Ian was here, so Carl could only talk to Ian about Bonnie. “I think I got a girlfriend,” Carl told him, but he couldn’t exactly say _I think I love her_. Lip loved Karen but he was gone, and Fiona and Jimmy loved each other but they were both gone, but Ian was here and Mickey was in his bed. “You love Mickey?” Carl asked, watching for Ian’s reaction. Ian paused from where he was doing pull ups on the door, staring at Carl like he was trying to decide what to say.

“I like the way he smells,” Ian said, but he never said no and he was admitting the one thing he _did_ like about Mickey, so Carl figured that was a _yes_.

“What you asking stupid fucking questions for?” Mickey suddenly asked to Carl’s right, and it was like a switch. Mickey was awake, and Ian’s time could only be devoted to him.

 _I like the way he smells, my ass_ , Carl thought, making his way downstairs.

It wasn’t until Bonnie was pulled against his body and Carl pressed his face into her hair that Carl realized that maybe Ian had been saying yes the entire time, that the two were entirely related.

Carl settled back into the mattress, arms around Bonnie, comforted by her presence by his side.

\--

Ian was bipolar. It wasn’t even like a brick or two falling out of place, it was a cascade of bricks falling, an entire wall plummeting and crashing to the ground. Carl felt numb. Debbie was quietly trying to talk to him, but Carl knew it was no use. Just look at Mickey. Mickey was looking at Ian desperately, so much hope that Ian would just rise up right now, like Debbie was a snake charmer and Ian was the snake. That optimism, blind in the face of the truth, hit Carl like a hammer. He moved away from the door and into the living room. He couldn’t do this. Fuck. He and Debbie had acted—had tried to act—like adults, but here they were, and they needed Lip and Fiona.

Fiona said, “Oh, what?” when she saw them, smile bright and the best thing Carl had seen from her in ages, but then Debbie was there and he couldn’t help it. Fiona laughed a bit as they tackled her, complaining about them crying, but she didn’t know, how could she?

Everything seemed to get better only to get worse. Shoot a bird for Thanksgiving and it’s monitored. Shave Frank’s hair only for him to get worse. Care for Frank only for his family to shit on him. Have Ian finally come back only for him to crash.

Seem to be getting somewhere with Bonnie only for her to disappear entirely.

No wonder they lived in the Southside. No wonder they were so poor. They were just shitty houses, made of rotting wood and crumbling brick. Waiting for the demolition ball to come.

\--

Everything seemed to get better only to get worse. Except Frank. Of fucking course, except Frank. Carl should have known, they way he always should have known. Frank seemed like he was about to die, only to pull a fucking miracle and live.

Carl looked at Frank’s outstretched hand, holding the bottle of scotch, and Carl shook his head. Frank said, “A little nip won’t hurt you,” and Carl saw Frank, alive and breathing hard and screaming at the open air, and took the bottle from his hands. The bottle read _Sterling Old Regal_ and felt large in his hands.

He remembered looking at Frank, practically on death’s doorstep, and vowing to never drink.

Carl took a sip and let the strong taste wash down his throat.

**Author's Note:**

> title in reference to Homecoming by Kanye West, which I listened to on repeat for about 4 hours while I was writing this fic


End file.
